Sunday, December 2, 2012

“I Want to Get to Know You”: Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle (1982)

I'm
continuing my foray into the representation of female sexual agency in porn,
this time by looking at the Platinum Elite edition of 1982's Deep Inside
Annie Sprinkle. The "docu-porn" is rapidly becoming the most
popular genre of gonzo today thanks mostly to the output of Elegant Angel,
particularly their contracted director Mason who has created the popular
eponymous porn series, Asa Akira is
Insatiable, Buttwoman, Slutwoman, and individual spotlight
features such as Dani, Celeste, and Remy. All of these films involve extensive narrative segments
between sex scenes that touch on the performers life and sexuality, and the sex
scenes themselves are created collaboratively between Mason and the performer.
The format goes back to the early 1970s, with the various Inside and Deep
Inside films, establishing the porn film that claims to go behind the
scenes and reveal the woman behind the porn star. (Interestingly, I read an
article recently that stated Linda Lovelace established the trend of using
pornography to represent authentic female desire through the many interviews
and writings she did claiming lack of distance between herself and her porn
star persona. In reality, while Linda Lovelace may have cemented the trend in
film, it goes back centuries in literature). Some of these films simply recut
scenes from other films, while others such as Insatiable (1980) and perhaps most notably Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle made concerted efforts to create dynamic
and original feature films that blurred (or illuminated?) the lines between
fantasy and reality, subject and object.

Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle
is notable because Sprinkle created the project with feminist intentions of
presenting her true sexual persuasions. As Sprinkle explains, “After making
about a hundred porn movies, written, produced and directed all by men, I felt
like I wanted to make something of my own. Something from a woman’s point of
view” (Hardcore from the Heart 51).
Sprinkle wrote the script, and had a high level of creative control. The film
was the second highest grossing hardcore film of 1982, and instigated, as Annie
Sprinkle puts it, “the beginning of a new era, pornography made by women” (Hardcore from the Heart 51). The
significance of this lies in how the most popular current gonzo format amongst
male consumers reflects and is rooted in this film, which was also one of the
most popular films with male consumers in its day. Evidently, female sexual
pleasure, female sexual desire, and the journey from girlhood to womanhood in
terms of sexuality is highly desirous as a pornographic subject, and indicates
a complicated attitude toward female sexual agency, as well as a paradoxical
tendency to both blur and illuminate the lines between fantasy and reality.

Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle
opens with Annie speaking directly to camera – a format that has, in recent
years, died out in favour of the interview format. She explains that her goal
is one of mutual intimacy between performer and spectator: “I’m really glad
that you came to see me because, well, I want to get to know you and I want you
to get to know me and I want us to become very very close and very very
intimate. Would you like that? I would.” Annie
creates the illusion of mutual intimacy, when in reality it is impossible that
Annie would get to know the spectator when the communication is only one way.
Only the spectator can get to know Annie, and not the other way around. Yet
what appears to be a one-way communication is in fact more complicated. First,
it could be argued that Annie gets to know her spectators through the medium of
pornography and the catering to male pornographic desires; and second, Annie’s
rhetoric is suggestive of her own dictation of those male pornographic desires.
A sort of re-education of desire, or at least guidance of these desires. Even
as Annie asks the question, “Would you like that?” she is answering, “I would,”
as if this is all the answer necessary, and she continues to use this style of
question and answer throughout the film.

Annie’s introduction of photos
from her childhood is unusual, and likely would not be included in current porn due to increased self-regulation (thanks to external pressure) of content within the industry. Perhaps
it is this recent context that makes the introduction of the photos feel
subversive, but aside from context there is something transgressive about
exposing the human being – a woman who was once a baby, a girl, a teenager; a
woman who has a family; a woman who has a real name, “Ellen” – behind the porn
star. In addition, the close ups that include Annie’s lacquered nails as she
directs our gaze, contribute to a sense of authorship on Annie’s part.

I love the fact that the first scene is one that privileges the heterosexual female gaze. The object? Two naked hunks arm-wrestling. Annie explains how she used to work on a construction site, and loved to watch the muscly guys and flirt with them. The subsequent scene focuses on how a woman might enjoy ravishing/being ravished by two men. This is not exactly an unfamiliar concept, but what is unfamiliar is the way the two men are positioned as sexual objects, and the homoeroticism of the arm-wrestling is represented as erotic to women. Thus, Annie's authorship of the sex scenes subtly transforms the gaze of the porn spectator. In spite of all the well-documented increase in female porn consumption, and alleged marketing to heterosexual women and couples, I cannot think of any mainstream "straight" porn today that would dare position the male body as object of lust in quite the same way, and I think that's revealing.

Annie
continues to play with the lines between reality and fantasy, on screen and off
screen, most particularly in the sequence where she has sex with theater-goers
watching one of Annie’s films.

You know, I am a real exhibitionist. And I love to have sex
in very public places. Sometimes, if I see one of my movies is playing, I’ll go
in and sit down and start watching myself sucking and fucking on that big
screen and that makes me very very horny. So, I get carried away and I start
doing all the guys around me. It’s really nice. So don’t be surprised if you’re
ever in a movie theater and I come in, and I sit right next to you.

The
subsequent scene blends the film on screen in the cinema with the film on
screen that we are watching, that is presented as reality. It exposes the
difference between on-screen action and off-screen action through the patrons’
shock – “Oh my god! You’re Annie Sprinkles!”– and yet the “real” Annie Sprinkle is still the on-screen
Annie Sprinkle, just a screen once removed. The cinema patron’s off-screen
reality is our on-screen fantasy, and Annie’s knowing smile in our directionat the end of the scene reinforces this sense of playful, and
pleasurable, complication of the separation of reality and fantasy.

I understand why there is so much concern over the way pornographic representations of sexuality are received as "true" or "authentic," and why the increased blurring of reality/fantasy in the internet age is discussed as a problem (see Cindy Gallop's Make Love Not Porn). Yet, I also understand the resentment some people have toward society's scapegoating of porn; the way porn is held accountable for sex education. Addressing
the complex ways in which pornography has and continues to interrogate the
“truth” of female sexuality can open up new avenues of discussion that connect
histories of literature and film, avoid class-based dismissal of certain
mediums and genres, and encourage a more nuanced approach to current trends in
porn that are too often dismissed as meaningless or even dangerous, and maligned by scholars
invested in eras and mediums deemed superior to the alleged “trash” being
consumed on the internet today.

Deep Inside Annie Sprinkle is a lovely
film. Annie exudes charisma and sweetness at the same time as she is
authentically lusty, a combination that I personally find magnetic and
inspirational. Clearly I am not alone, as her dynamic career post-porn
demonstrates. The Platinum Elite edition of this film is simply beautiful, and
the DVD comes with a wealth of extras, including a commentary by Annie, astoundingly awesome liner notes, and an adorable cut-out finger
puppet of Annie. If you already own this film, like I did, I urge you to
"double dip" on this one. If you have never seen it before, do yourself
a favour and buy this edition. If you're interested in Annie's career - her
art, her porn, her performance, and writings, visit her website. I heartily
recommend the DVD Herstory of Porn and her dazzling book, Post Porn Modernist.